Monday, November 28, 2016

People Watching - Christmas Shopping Edition

People are endlessly fascinating. As writers, we become expert people watchers and I had some fun this weekend while doing some Christmas Shopping.

Here are some folks who may or may not show up in a future story!!

the lady who, on Nov 27!!!, announced to everyone at the checkout that she was officially done her Christmas shopping. Her smug smile carried her through the front doors of the store while the rest of us in line either glared at her or whimpered after her with envy

the man wearing leather and chains with tattoos covering his hand whose toddler couldn't keep steady on his feet with all the crowds, so he hefted him up to his shoulders and softly sang Jingle Bells with him while they made their way through the store

the elderly couple pushing a cart through the store and chatting about Every. Last. Item. on the ends of the aisles. They held up traffic in the busy store, but, while I watched, not one person got annoyed. In fact, one teenager overheard part of the conversation and stopped to tell them that, yes, that pair of fuzzy slippers would be perfect for a twelve-year-old

the two women, busy chatting on their cell phones, who rounded the ends of the aisles and crashed right into each other, both of them dropping their bags and their phones. Just like a cartoon. Luckily, they straightened out the mess without too much trouble

the elderly woman who shoved me to the side so she could look at the jewelry I was checking out for my mom. When I stumbled (and nearly knocked down the display!), she sent me a glare and told me I should learn to be more careful. I froze a second before I started to laugh. She shoved her nose in the air, sniffed disdainfully, grabbed a necklace, and stomped off

the mom who pulled out a softball sized lump of some kind of homemade Playdoh while she stood in front of me in a checkout line. Her son's face lit up and he shaped and pulled and twisted quite happily while they waited for their turn to pay. Brilliant!

They all sound like they would be perfect for characters in a story. I'm torn between the tattooed father and the teenage talking to the elderly couple about the slippers. People watching is such fun. :)

Good question! A few years ago, our retailers all jumped on the Black Friday/Cyber Monday bandwagon in order to stop losing so much business to US online businesses and cross-border shoppers. It's working :)

I love it! All of those could be fabulous characters! I haven't been people watching...in a long time. Truth, since living in NYC, I kinda have the head-down, straight-to-business mentality about shopping. If I'm not focused on the task at hand, I'm marshaling one of my kids into appropriate behavior. Like the playdough lady.

I absolutely love to people watch! So many interesting characters out there and your shopping trip sure highlighted some fascinating ones. :) I love that you laughed when the woman was being snobby about the jewelry. Perfect!

I love people watching, too. The train platform, waiting for the elevator on the campus where I work, even sitting in doctors' waiting rooms have provided some creative fodder. I hope you do something with these characters!

Love these encounters. Why do the elderly begin to behave so badly? And why do people forget where they are when they're on their cell phones? They terrify me at intersections when I'm navigating through town.